MEANING IN REPAIR: THE ABSTRACT NOUN YISI `MEANING/INTENTION` IN THE MANAGEMENT OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY IN MANDARIN CONVERSATION

Abstract

Despite the number of publications concerning the use of abstract nouns in English, this topic is rarely addressed in the literature on languages like Chinese. By examining the abstract noun yisi `meaning/intention` in Mandarin conversation, the present study is intended to contribute to this line of research. Drawing on data from two corpora of spoken Taiwan Mandarin and taking an Interactional Linguistics approach, this article aims to show that yisi tends to occur in particular lexico-grammatical patterns and that the function of most of these yisi-based constructions lies in organizing repair and intersubjectivity in conversation. It is also argued that the use of yisi in spoken Mandarin is shaped by the interplay between the syntactic features, semantic properties, and pragmatic implications of both the noun and the associated constructions. The findings thus not only shed light on the research of repair and abstract nouns, but also advance our understanding of the mutual influence between language structure and social interaction.

僅管在英語語言學的文獻當中，已有眾多討論抽象名詞的相關著作，然而，對於其他如現代漢語等語言中抽象名詞的研究，仍付之闕如。本篇論文旨在探討漢語會話中，抽象名詞「意思」的分布與功能，藉以補足這方面文獻之不足。基於兩大臺灣漢語口語語料庫的資料，以及互動語言學的理論與方法，本研究發現，不同於一般名詞，「意思」傾向出現在特定詞彙語法結構當中，以達到會語中處理修正機制與互為主觀性的功能。由此可見，「意思」在口語漢語中的分布和功能，高度受到抽象名詞本身和所處構式之語法、語意與語用因素交互作用所影響。本研究不僅能做為未來抽象名詞與修正機制研究之基礎，更能增進對於語言結構與社會互動相互影響機制的了解。